Stockton
November 4, 2010
AB 900 Construction Update
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a historic and comprehensive corrections overhaul bill on May 3, 2007. The bipartisan legislation, Assembly Bill 900 (Solorio; D-Anaheim), addresses health care space deficiencies and overcrowding in California’s prisons and provides resources to improve public safety by reducing the rates at which inmates re-victimize communities and return to prison. AB 900 authorized more than $7 billion in funding for state prison projects, reentry facilities and local jail beds to ease the overcrowding in California’s prisons and local jails. It provides resources to improve public safety by reducing recidivism rates. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has started construction on three projects. Several more are in the planning phase...
November 4, 2010
Stockton Prison Hospital Update
CHCF-Stockton is an intermediate medical and mental health care facility for patient-inmates within the California state prison system. By centralizing care for patient-inmates with significant health care needs, the California Prison Health Care Services helps provide the required level of care to the incarcerated population in state prisons.
Location:
CHCF-Stockton will be built on a 400-acre state-owned Northern California Youth Correctional Center property in San Joaquin County. The facility will occupy the 144-acre site of the former Karl Holton Youth facility, which will be demolished...
June 9, 2010
With prison hospital, Stockton learns how to bargain
If there's a bully in California government, it is the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The CDCR likes to pick on Stockton by dumping prison facilities here.
Unfair? Costly to you? San Joaquin County groans with three prisons already? Too bad. We're opening three more: a re-entry facility and two prison hospitals.
That's how the CDCR operates. CDCR is the unjust agent of a dysfunctional state that runs roughshod over poorer and politically weak communities.
This time, there was a second player: a court-appointed federal prison hospital receiver. For J. Clark Kelso, too, Stockton's needs were an afterthought...
LINK - Recordnet.com
April 19, 2010
Inmate escapee (walk-away) from camp, captured in Stockton
Prison officials tracked a man who escaped from a work camp in Tehama County back to a Stockton home where was with his wife, a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman said today.
Phillip Joseph Guthmiller, 29, walked away from the minimum security Ishi Conservation Camp in Paynes Creek on April 8, where he was serving time for 2008 second-degree burglary conviction in San Joaquin County.
Corrections Agents and Rancho Cordova Fugitive Apprehension Team took Guthmiller into custody at 7 a.m. Saturday at the Stockton home without incident, CDCR spokeswoman Margaret Pieper said...
LINK - Recordnet.com
April 10, 2010
Tentative prison deal in Stockton
Local leaders reached a tentative agreement Friday with state corrections officials and prison health care receiver J. Clark Kelso to build an inmate medical facility southeast of Stockton.
The settlement ends nearly six months of tense negotiations and resolves a lawsuit over the 1,722-bed prison for physically and mentally ill prisoners. Once built it will be called the California Medical Facility, Stockton.
"There's been lots of animosity and hard feelings, but in the end I think everybody wins," San Joaquin County Supervisor Leroy Ornellas said. "That's good news..."
LINK - Recordnet.com
April 4, 2010
Fed Receiver, Locals (in Stockton) Just Keep Pounding Away At Each Other
"We're equally frustrated that it's taken us this long to get to this situation," J. Clark Kelso, the federal prison receiver, said last week.
Kelso and Brett Morgan, chief of staff of the state's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, met with The Record's editorial board a few days after the board met with local officials who have litigation pending against the project.
They wanted to give their side of the medical prison impasse. About 10 days ago, the board, of which I am a member, met with about eight officials from the city of Stockton and San Joaquin County who came in to discuss the 1,734-bed inmate medical facility proposed for the shuttered Karl Holton Youth Correctional Drug and Alcohol Treatment Facility on Arch Road, east of Highway 99 and southeast of Stockton...
LINK - Recordnet.com
March 8, 2010
Chad assault lawsuit heads to court
A fight that started six years ago at a Stockton-area youth prison, igniting statewide calls to reform California's juvenile-justice system, is about to flare up again - this time in a downtown courtroom.
Rather than exchanging physical blows, Narciso Morales, a former ward at N.A. Chaderjian Youth Correctional Facility, and Delwin Brown, a youth correctional counselor, will let their attorneys exchange verbal jabs.
But on Jan. 20, 2004, they physically brawled in earnest.
Grainy images of a fray among two wards and two staffers splashed across national media outlets. The case turned the Stockton complex into a lightning rod.
LINK - Recordnet.net
February 5, 2010
Valley legislators oppose early release, Stockton-area prison hospitals
California's leaders continue to struggle with what to do about the state's 33 overcrowded prison facilities and bulging county jails.
This week, Sacramento County authorities released hundreds of low-level inmates early in response to legislation last year designed to reduce the state's prison and jail populations. There has been no similar release of jail inmates in San Joaquin County.
On Jan. 25, a new law took effect that requires county jails to release nonviolent, misdemeanor offenders on "good behavior" after serving half their sentences.
One of the inmates released early in Sacramento County was arrested 12 hours later on an attempted-rape charge…
LINK - RecordNet.com
February 1, 2010
Sides Meet, Talk Prisons in Stockton
In remarks at a public forum Saturday morning about prison facilities planned for Stockton, County Supervisor Steve Bestolarides noted that, in a deviation from historical precedent, the city and the county were on the same side of a lawsuit.
"I've brought the community together," joked J. Clark Kelso, the prison health care receiver whose efforts to bring a facility to Stockton have been criticized by local business and political leaders for a lack of transparency and local outreach.
The forum, sponsored by the League of Women Voters, started early Saturday morning in a banquet room at Valley Brew, a brewpub off the Miracle Mile. Bestolarides, Mayor Ann Johnston and Chamber of Commerce CEO Douglass Wilhoit were there to represent local interests. Kelso, former state Sen. Mike Machado, and California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Chief of Staff Brett Morgan were there to make the case for the facilities…
LINK - Recordnet.com
January 26, 2010
Stockton v. Kelso Lawsuit “on hold”
A jurisdictional decision involving a lawsuit against federal prison health care receiver J. Clark Kelso will have to wait eight more weeks.
U.S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton said Monday that he will rule March 22 on the motion by Stockton attorney Steve Herum, who wants his lawsuit over construction of an inmate medical center to be heard in San Joaquin County Superior Court.
[…]
Herum wants to force the state to pay millions in concessions to ensure the facility does as little harm as possible to the community…
LINK - RecordNet.com
December 15, 2009
Mike Machado, John Garamendi Jr. hired to promote Stockton prison hospital
With a lawsuit pending against the state, a former state legislator from Linden and the son of Rep. John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove, have been hired to tell the community why a large prison hospital would be good for the county.
Mike Machado, who represented much of San Joaquin County in the Assembly and State Senate in the 1990s and the current decade, and John Garamendi Jr., were hired for the lobbying positions. They began work on Monday.
Machado, Garamendi and three other members of the Ochoa & Moore law firm in Sacramento will try to convince people in San Joaquin County that the prison hospital would be an asset rather than a liability…
LINK - LodiNews.com
December 12, 2009
Former NCWF gets ready to become state’s first “Re-Entry” prison
Few local residents know much about a former women's prison that sits idle on Arch Road about two miles east of Highway 99.
Aside from the wind, little has blown through the prison's concertina wire fences since the state closed it in 2003. An occasional film crew has set up, and correctional officials use the empty cellblocks to practice tactical maneuvers.
The prison will soon get a new life…
LINK - RecordNet.com
December 10, 2009
Public meeting in Stockton to discuss prisons
State prison officials will present plans and take input on a 500-bed inmate re-entry facility southeast of Stockton in two public meetings to be held today.
The Northern California Reentry Facility is one of three new prisons the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation plans to open southeast of Stockton.
The re-entry facility would occupy the former Northern California Women's Facility on Arch Road east of Highway 99. State officials plan to open the re-entry facility in late 2012…
LINK - RecordNet.com
November 27, 2009
Fed receiver Kelso seeks to move Stockton’s prison expansion lawsuit to federal court
Prison health-care receiver J. Clark Kelso has filed a notice to move a lawsuit filed against him over a proposed inmate medical center near Stockton to federal court in Sacramento.
The move drew criticism from local leaders as being "intellectually dishonest in the extreme."
The Stockton Greater Chamber of Commerce, city of Stockton and San Joaquin County filed suit in the San Joaquin County Superior Court on Nov. 17 in an attempt to force millions of dollars in concessions from the state…
LINK - Recordnet.com
November 13, 2009
Stockton: “We can do much to control city’s image if more prisons come”
Much of the angst over the huge prison projects planned here by the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation can be boiled to one word: reputation.
There are those who believe that bringing an additional 3,300 prison convicts into the county will be just one more image problem Stockton must face. Deserved or not, the city already has a reputation for poor schools. For a high crime rate. For a high rate of home foreclosures. For a high unemployment rate. For a low level of educational attainment. And for a high rate of those without health insurance.
Do we really need more prisons, something else outsiders can point to when the subject of Stockton comes up? Do we really want to take a chance of Stockton becoming to the Central Valley what Oakland is to the Bay Area?…
LINK - RecordNet.com Opinion Section
November 8, 2009
A closer look at California’s prison plans for San Joaquin County Inmate influx
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is about to take a dramatic step into San Joaquin County.
While the full impact remains unclear, numbers offer a glimpse into the community's future with three new state prison facilities proposed for land southeast of Stockton. Once the state's plans fully unfold:
» The California prison system will become the largest employer in the county with an estimated 8,200 workers. County government today employs the most people, with 6,500 workers…
LINK - RecordNet.com
November 4, 2009
Stockton City council votes to sue CDCR over proposed prisons
Stockton City Council voted unanimously, 7-0, Tuesday evening to challenge the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in its efforts to build two prisons to house sick, injured and unhealthy felons in the city.
"We hope to join [San Joaquin] County and the Greater Stockton Chamber of Commerce in this challenge," says City Attorney Ren Nosky, as part of his announcement of a closed session decision.
The state finalized plans to locate a prison re-entry facility at the site of the former women's prison last year. Last month, the state prison health care receiver, Clark Kelso, told local officials of final plans to build a 1,734-bed inmate prison hospital immediately adjacent the site. On Halloween Eve, he revealed plans for a 1,133-bed medical and mental health care facility…
LINK - CentralValleyBusinessTimes.com
October 22, 2008
Three Men in Custody in Prison Employee Murder
Police have taken three individuals into custody in connection with the slaying of a women's prison employee in north Stockton Wednesday morning.
Police have identified the victim as Michael Rutledge, 35. He was a supervisor of food services at the Federal Correctional Institution women's prison in Dublin. His employment started there in 2000.
Wednesday afternoon, investigators stopped a green Jeep Cherokee in south Stockton and apprehended its occupants. A third man was also put in custody, at a home, a few blocks away. Their names have not been released…
LINK - News10.net
October 11, 2008
Reinstatement of Corrections Employees Upheld
The Third District Court of Appeal yesterday upheld the state Personnel Board's decision to reinstate six correctional employees who were fired for their roles in a videotaped beating of two inmates at a California youth prison.
Ruling in an unpublished decision that the video alone did not provide a basis to reject an administrative law judge's findings that the employees did not use excessive force in the 2004 incident or lie to cover it up, the court held that a trial judge erred when he ordered the board to set aside its decision and conduct a new hearing.
In a case that drew national attention, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation fired four youth counselors and two correctional officers from the Chaderjian Youth Correctional Facility in Stockton after the release of the video, accusing them of misconduct in their response to—and subsequent statements regarding—a struggle which occurred after the inmates attacked two of the counselors…
LINK - MetNews.com (The Metropolitan News-Enterprise)
June 18, 2008
Release of brain-damaged inmate in costly care debated
He's a brain-damaged murderer, in a persistent vegetative state, and since December it's cost the state more than $831,000 – about half in officer overtime – to guard and care for him.
Now, California corrections officials are looking into a possible compassionate release for Jackson Phaysaleum, 24, who is four years into a sentence of 46-to-life.
Convicted of killing two men in a dispute over Stockton drug turf, Phaysaleum was rendered all but lifeless after a cellmate attacked him at Kern Valley State Prison.
One advocate of compassionate releases for dying or disabled inmates said Phaysaleum's continued imprisonment is needless and almost vindictive…
LINK - SacBee.com (The Sacramento Bee)
May 30, 2008
Officers nab escaped inmates in Stockton, Richmond
Correctional officers say they've captured two inmates who made a coordinated escape from the county courthouse in downtown Stockton.
Officials with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation say the pair escaped as officers were taking them from the San Joaquin County Superior Courthouse to Deuel Vocational Institution, a state prison near Tracy…
LINK - MercuryNews.com
March 10, 2008
Schwarzenegger’s New CDCR Appointees
Marisela Montes, 54, of Gold River, has been appointed deputy director of the division of adult institutions for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). Since 2007, she has been senior adviser to the Division of Adult Institutions for CDCR. From 2006 to 2007, Montes was chief deputy secretary of Adult Programs at CDCR. She previously served as deputy director for administration at the Department of Transportation from 1999 to 2006 and chief of correctional planning and research at CDCR from 1998 to 1999. Montes held various positions within CDCR from 1984 to 1999, including deputy director of the Parole and Community Services Division and associate warden at California State Prison, Solano. Prior to that, she held positions at the Department of Social Services from 1981 to 1984 and State Personnel Board 1980 to 1981. Montes began her career in state service as a postsecondary education specialist at the California Postsecondary Education Commission in 1977. This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $142,428. Montes is registered decline-to-state.
Kimberly Petersen, 45, of Modesto, has been appointed community program manager for the Northern California Re-Entry Facility in Stockton for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Since 2007, she has been a professor of victimology at California State University, Stanislaus. From 1999 to 2007, Petersen was executive director of the Carole Sund/Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation and, from 1996 to 1999, was a teacher at Joshua Cowell Elementary School in the Manteca Unified School District. From 1991 to 1995, she was recreation director for the Livermore Valley Tennis Club, and from 1987 to 1991, was a teacher and athletic director at Our Savior Lutheran School. Prior to that, Petersen was a teacher at Zion Lutheran School from 1986 to 1987. This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $87,048. Petersen is a Republican.
